


Minutes or Seconds

by soupsalad



Series: Goro is alive but at what cost [4]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, except hes not death but thats for another fic entirely, this came out feeling shippy but it really aint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:40:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24803254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupsalad/pseuds/soupsalad
Summary: Goros final moments alive after the defeat in the last palace, he thinks about his friendship with Sumire and what the future has in store for him.//persona 5 royal spoilers. sequel of hysteric strength.//
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Yoshizawa Kasumi
Series: Goro is alive but at what cost [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776391
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Minutes or Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> this is so bad i wrote it in one go at 4am hahehhehehshahhah.

Minutes, seconds, nothing. What did he have? How long did he have left?

Goro watches the palace crumble from the helicopter, crammed in and uncomfortable like a sardine in a can of idiots. He doesn't join the celebration, complaining, and fanfare, there's no need to. He's not going to be here much longer.

“Do you think you could save this celebration for some other time, Morgana? Perhaps tell me why you didn't make yourself a little bigger than this?” Ok, so he does complain a little bit. He didn't imagine his last moments alive would be him squished between a bunch of people to the back of a helicopter wall. It almost felt insulting.

“Wheres Joker?”  The questions asked and the others turn their attention to Akira hanging from the bottom of the helicopter as fine as ever.

“Hm,” Goro's glad he's alright. It would be unfortunate for two people to die today. He lets himself relax. Seconds or minutes, it was one of those now before the end, all he had to do was wait. He doesn't recall dying in the true reality, there was a gap between now and then so he was left once again wondering what death might be like.  He doesn't get too far into his pondering before the jolt of something grabbing their ride starts him out of his focus. The group is in an uproar immediately. Instinctually he tries to stop himself from falling despite knowing he didn't really need to worry so much about self-preservation now of all times. 

“Maruki…” He hisses the name so hatefully that he shocks himself even. He didn't really hate the man all that much, just what he was doing. He didn't want to wait a second longer, just let this be over, stop fighting.

With a tentacle, the man starts pulling the ride out of the sky hoping to secure the treasure he had lost.

“Great,” He comments as he listens to them panic about the loss of altitude, but then recalls Akira outside and worries. He had not even wanted to come and fight today. Would he even stop Maruki?

“No, that's ridiculous,” Of course he would, despite everything he had already done so much here today, the fight prior to this was proof that he had found his resolve and made the right choice, it was only the others previous betrayal making him doubt Joker right now. He watches the leader of the phantom thieves drop down from the grappling hook and back towards Maruki to finish this once and for all.

Minutes, Goro finds himself thinking. He has minutes until the end.

The ride away from the palace is like a walk towards execution, but he imagines it will be more like fading than being killed. In his mind being killed has to hurt and he does not think returning to reality is going to hurt. One second he will be packed in this helicopter and the next he will be dead. Fading, he would just be fading away. Fading was painless he imagined.

“Akechi-senpai,” Her voice is the only one he welcomes without ire. He turns to look at her, Sumire.

“Wh…” But he stops in his tracks, wordlessly looking into her eyes knowing he had made a mistake in ever deciding to acknowledge her now of all times. 

She does nothing exceptional, just looks at him with eyes full of gratitude and he finds his mind flooded with what he thinks must be those memories of life flashing before one's eyes.

  
  


Just seconds handpicked out of events in his life. He thinks about little things, remembers them really. 

Talking a step closer to her in Maruki’s palace when she was in pain like a moth to a flame. The way his hand twitched when she would groan but he would hold back, control every muscle in his body to keep himself from approaching to console or help her, soothe her pain somehow like any teammate was supposed to do. His hands moved to help instead of harm and he could not stand the fact. Since when had he become so soft?

_ “What would I have even done?” _ He finds himself asking in retrospect. What could he have really done being his abrasive self to help her? _Am I even as cruel as I think I am?_ He knows he's never going to have time to ponder on that.

Red, so much red, like streams of blood down her back, tied up in a ribbon, silky and smooth as far as he could see. He couldn't just touch it, that would be creepy. Still, like an owner drawn to petting a cat's soft fur, the thought had run through his mind every time he saw her. He had never touched many people in his life. He ached for it, to feel something in his hands without even knowing. He had spent his life scolding himself for looking longingly at hands and arms and hair, imagining the pressure of another person on his chests. He had spent an eternity hating himself for wanting such frivolous things. He wonders how good her hair would look in braids.

He remembers standing behind her wondering what to do, these things were more Akiras strong point. Akira was the supportive shoulder that his teammates would lean on, Goro was just the intense man helping them out until Akira could get his friends back, in her agony he had no right to offer anything to her but aloof advice and cold inquires on her wellbeing.

He remembers saving her. He remembers fury like nothing else thinking she was being used by Maruki. He still thinks she was being used to some degree despite his good intentions. He hates to be used and he hated to see her being used too, it boils his blood so fiercely he thinks he could lose his mind just listening to Maruki say her name. He likes to hear mentionings of her, she's a pleasant person, but when Maruki speaks he wants to hurt him badly. _I wish I could remember when I became so bloodthirsty._

He blinks at her from his spot in the helicopter, she doesn't look away from him, she couldn't leave him alone in his final seconds but considering how cramped it was, she couldn't make her way over to him either. This was all she could offer him who had fought so hard, maybe not for her, but the fighting he did had ultimately saved her. She wants to think that perhaps some of it was for her, they had known each other so long. Were they friends? She thinks they were. Even if it wasn't for her, he had fought so much in general, a life of strife. In his final moments, he deserved to have some sort of sign that he wouldn't be leaving the world alone, that he wouldn't be leaving the world unloved. _I wish I knew what the meaning of my love for him was._ But she knows that once shes figured it out he will be a distant memory. Platonic, romantic, familial, it didn't matter anymore.

He remembers the sound of his angered scream being drowned out by the shock of Maruki’s tentacles before he drove her persona to its berserk state, his heart pounding so fast he felt it was making his entire body quake. " _ Let her go _ ," he was thinking, " _ let her go and release her from that humiliating position."  _ The visage of a woman manipulated by a man is what gives him his most visceral of reactions, there was always fury. _Do I hate Maruki more than I think?_ He knows he wont have time to answer that either. 

  
  


_"I am on your side."_ He remembers her saying, and the swell of joy and relief in his chest comes to mind. She was no doubt disappointed in what he had done to Akira, but she was still there to remind him that he wasn't alone. _Did she hate me? Did she care about me at all? Was she just kind because that's the type of person she is? or did I have anything to do with her choice? Does she hate that I hurt Akira for the sake of her sister?_ Another set of unanswerable questions.

Little things, he remembers little things, seconds worth of things that feel like hours and hours in his memory.  He even recalls bad things, her opinion of the phantom thieves had made him cringe inwardly, but that was the spice of life, friends saying embarrassing things. _Had she expected that the victims of Kamoshida would be able to rise up against him without help? Was she stupid?_

“Sumire,” He doesn't mean to say her name like that, he had intended to respectfully refer to her as he always had, but without much thought, his mouth had moved. She just smiles at him sadly.

He recalls it all, meeting in the studio, brief exchanges of greetings, Remembers the feeling of a supportive hand on his shoulder in the hospital again, it had been just yesterday night.

  
  


If every second could be drawn out of him on film and displayed he thinks he could watch it all in a moment. He would, but he knows he doesn't have many moments left.

He moves his mouth to say something, but nothing distinct comes out. What does someone say in a second to thank a person for so many things? Ideas flash by faster than a second. 

_Thank you for being good to me even after you saw the real me._

_Thank you so much for not being a phantom thief and bending over backward for Akira._

_Thank you for being alive at the same time I was, I'm so glad I was simply able to have something good to think about before I vanished._

He doesn't say any of these things, just looks at her still unable to find the words. He frowns, not really sure what to do with his expression as Maruki and Akira grow harder and harder to see. Just seconds left. Sumire looks worried, sad even but she smiles despite it not wanting his last sight to be anything like she imagined it would be like. Alone at the bottom of a ship, surrounded by nothing but the cognitive beings of a man who hates you.

"Stay well," Akechi offers, not really sure what else to wish her.

When she comes to outside of mementos he's already long gone.


End file.
